The Dreaming Void

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘In your pervert dreams!’

  Aaron grinned and crunched down on some toast.

  ‘So what’s your mission?’ Corrie-Lyn asked. ‘What do you have to do, kidnap Living Dream Councillors?’

  ‘Ex-Councillors. But no, that’s not the way of it.’

  ‘So what do you want with me?’

  ‘I need to find Inigo. I believe you can help.’

  Corrie-Lyn dropped her spoon and stared at him in disbelief. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You expect me to help you? After what you’ve just said?’

  ‘Yes. Why not?’

  ‘But…’ she spluttered.

  ‘Living Dream is trying to kill you. Understand this: they’re not going to stop. If anything, the other night will only make them more determined. The only person left in the galaxy who can put the brakes on your dear new Cleric Conservator is Inigo himself.’

  ‘So that’s who you’re working for, the anti-Pilgrimage lobby.’

  ‘There’s no guarantee that Inigo will stop the Pilgrimage if he comes back. You know him better than anybody. Do I speak the right in that?’

  She nodded forlornly. ‘Yeah. I think you might.’

  ‘So help me find him.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ she said in a low voice. ‘How can you ask when even you don’t know what you’ll do to him if we find him.’

  ‘Anyone who has hidden himself this well is never going to be taken by surprise even if we do manage to track him down. He knows there are a lot of serious people looking for him. Besides, if I wanted to kill him, why would I take the trouble of hunting him down. If he’s off the stage he can’t direct any of the actors, now can he? So if I want him back, I must want him back intact.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said weakly.

  ‘I saved your life.’

  Corrie-Lyn gave him a sly smile. ‘The software running you saved my life. It did it because you needed me. I’m your best hope, remember.’

  ‘You’re my number one choice.’

  ‘Better get ready to schmooze number two.’

  ‘Not even my liver could take another night in Rakas. I do need you, Corrie-Lyn. And what about you? What do you need? Don’t you want to find him? Don’t you want to hear why he upped and left you and all the billions who believed in him? Did he lose faith? Was Living Dream just that all along, nothing more than a dream?’

  ‘Low blow.’

  ‘You can’t do nothing. You’re not that kind of person. You know Inigo must be found before the Pilgrimage leaves. Somebody will find him. Nobody can stay hidden for ever, not in this universe. Politics simply won’t allow it. Who do you want to find him?’

  ‘I … I can’t,’ Corrie-Lyn said.

  ‘I understand. I can wait, at least for a little while longer.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She put her head down and started to eat her French toast, almost as if she was ashamed by the decision.

  Aaron didn’t see her for nearly three hours after breakfast. She went back into her bedroom and stayed there. His u-shadow monitored a small amount of unisphere use; she was running through standard information files from the Living Dream fanes in the city. He had a shrewd idea what she was looking for, a friend she could trust, which meant things could well be swinging his way. If they set foot outside it wouldn’t be long before Manby or his replacement were racing up behind them, guns flaring.

  When she came out she was wearing a loose-neck red sweater and tight black trousers; a silver necklace made a couple of long loops round her neck before wrapping round her hips. She’d fluffed her dark hair neatly, and infused it with purple and green sparks that glimmered on a long cycle. He gave her an appreciative smile. Which she ignored.

  ‘I need to talk to someone,’ she announced.

  Aaron tried not to make his smirk too obvious. ‘Sure thing. I hope you’re not going to insist on going alone. There are bad people out there.’

  ‘You can come with me, but the conversation is private.’

  ‘Okay. Can I ask if you’ve already set up a meeting?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. Don’t call anyone. The Ellezelin cybersphere has government monitors in its nodes. Manby’s team will fall on you like a planet-killer asteroid.’

  Her expression flickered with worry. ‘I already accessed the unisphere.’

  ‘That’s okay. They probably can’t trace your u-shadow access,’ he lied. ‘Do you know where this person is likely to be?’

  ‘The Daeas fane, that’s over on the south side of the city.’

  ‘Right then, we’ll take a taxi to that district and land a couple of blocks away. Once we’re at the fane we’ll try and get a visual on your friend.’

  ‘He’s not a friend,’ she said automatically.

  Aaron shrugged. ‘Whoever the person is. If we find him then you can have your chat in private, okay. Calling him is our last resort; and please let me do that. My u-shadow has fixes available that should circumvent the monitor systems.’

  She nodded agreement, picked up her scarlet bag and wrapped a long fawn-coloured scarf round her shoulders. ‘Let’s go.’

  Aaron was perfectly relaxed in the taxi flight over the city. He spent it looking down on the buildings, enjoying the vertical perspective as the towers flipped past underneath. The inhabitants certainly enjoyed their roof gardens, nearly half of them had some kind of terrace fenced in by greenery; swimming pools were everywhere.

  He didn’t know what the outcome of Corrie-Lyn’s meeting would be. Nor did he really care. His only certainty was that he’d know exactly what to do when the time came. There was, he reflected, a lot of comfort to be had in his unique level of ignorance.

  They landed on an intersection at the edge of the Daeas district. It was a commercial area dominated by the monolithic buildings that had been the Ellezelin Offworld Office, the ministry which had masterminded the Free Market Zone and Ellezelin’s subsequent commercial and diplomatic domination of neighbouring star systems. Now the structures were given over to hotels, casinos, and exclusive malls. They walked along the ornate stone facades towards the fane, with Aaron making sure they didn’t take a direct route. He wanted time to scan round and check for possible – make that probable – hostiles.

  ‘Did you know he was leaving before he actually went?’ Aaron asked.

  Corrie-Lyn gave him an unsettled glance. ‘No,’ she sighed. ‘But we’d cooled off quite a while back. I hadn’t been excluded, exactly, but I wasn’t in the inner circle any more.’

  ‘Who was?’

  ‘That’s the thing. No one, really. Inigo had been getting more and more withdrawn for a long time. Years. Because we were so close, it took a time for me to notice how distant he was growing. You know what it’s like.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ he said, which earned him a frown. ‘So there was no one event, then?’

  ‘Ah, you’re talking about the fabled Last Dream, aren’t you? No, not that I was aware. But then that rumour had to come from somewhere.’

  Even before they won a majority in Parliament, the Living Dream’s Chief Councillor of Riasi boasted that you could never travel more than two kilometres in the city without encountering a fane. The buildings didn’t have a specific layout: anything which had a hall large enough to accommodate the faithful, along with office space and living quarters, would do. Given the inherent wealth of the Daeas district it was inevitable that the local fane should be impressive; a contemporary Berzaz cube, with horizontal stripes twisted at fifteen degrees to each other, their fluid-luminal surfaces shining with an intensity that automatically matched the sunlight, delineating each floor in a spectromatic waterfall. The overall effect was a city block that was trying to screw itself into the ground. It was surrounded by a broad plaza with a fountain at each point. Tall jets squirted out from the centre of inclined rings that were ticked out with ingrav to make the water flow upslope.

  Aaron scanned round the bustling plaza, perfo
rming a meticulous assessment of the locale, allowing his combat software to plot escape routes. His u-shadow was busy extracting the civic plans for the neighbouring buildings, along with utility tunnels and traffic routes. Directly opposite the fane’s main entrance was an arcade with a curving crystal roof sheltering fifty high-class shops and boutiques on three levels; it had multiple entrances on to three streets and five underground cargo depots, as well as seven cab platforms and ten rooftop landing pads. That would be difficult to cover even for a large surveillance team. Next to it was a staid old ministry building that now housed several financial institutions and a couple of export merchants. There weren’t so many ways in and out, but it did have a large subterranean garage full of expensive regrav capsules. The boulevard running alongside was lined with shops and entertainment salons mixed in with bars and restaurants; tables outside played host to a vibrant café culture. Aaron’s u-shadow called down three taxis and parked them on public pads nearby, paying for them to wait with three independent and genuinely untraceable coin accounts.

  ‘Do you want me to go in and try and find him?’ Corrie-Lyn asked.

  Aaron studied the fane’s main entrance, a truncated archway which the fluid-luminal flowed round on either side, presenting it as a dark passageway. Plenty of people were coming and going, the majority dressed in the kind of clothes found on Querencia. Brightly coloured Cleric robes were easy to spot.

  ‘I’m assuming this somebody is a Living Dream Cleric, quite a senior one given your own rank.’

  She gave him a short nod. ‘Yves. He’s still the deputy here. I’ve known him for fifty years. Completely devoted to Inigo’s vision.’

  ‘Old guard, then.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay, not likely to bump into him running errands round the place then. He’s going to stay put in his office.’

  ‘That’s on the fourth floor. I can probably get up there, I do have some clearance. I’m not sure I can take you with me.’

  ‘Any clearance you had will be revoked by now. And if you interface with a Living Dream network it’ll send up an alert they can see back on Old Earth.’

  ‘So what do you want to do, then?’

  ‘If honesty doesn’t pay … I have a few tricks that should be able to get us up to his office without drawing attention to ourselves. All you have to do is pray he doesn’t turn us in the minute we say “hello”.’

  ‘I say hello,’ she emphasized.

  ‘Whatever.’ His software had now identified three probable hostiles amid the bustle of pedestrians across the plaza. Looking at the shimmering building he got the distinct sensation of a trap waiting to snap shut. His trouble was that pointing out the three suspects wouldn’t be anything like enough to convince Corrie-Lyn that she should be doing her utmost to help him. That would require a genuine scare on the same scale as Captain Manby had provided back in Greater Makkathran. The difference being this time she would be awake, sober, and clean. She had to realize Living Dream was her enemy on every level.

  ‘We’ll go in by the front door,’ he said. ‘No sense drawing attention to ourselves trying to sneak in round the back.’

  ‘Each side of the fane has an entrance which leads to the main reception hall. They’re all open, we welcome everyone.’

  ‘I was speaking metaphorically,’ he said. ‘Come on.’ His u-shadow told him the Riasi metropolitan police had just received an alert that two political activists known to be aggressive had been seen in the city. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Elvis is well and truly back in the building,’ he muttered without really knowing why.

  Corrie-Lyn let out a hiss of exasperation at his nonsense, and headed off towards the fane’s entrance. Aaron followed behind, smiling at her attitude. The thoughts within the plaza’s gaiafield were pleasurable and enticing, a melange of sensations that made the hair along his spine stand up. It was almost as if the inside of his skull was being caressed. Something wonderful resided inside the fane the gaiafield promised him. He just had to step inside …

  Aaron grinned at the crudity of the allure, it was the mental equivalent of fresh baked bread on a winter’s morning. He imagined it would be quite an attraction to any casual passer-by; the problem he had with that was the lack of any such specimen, the majority of Ellezelin’s population were all Living Dream devotees. But this fane like all the others in the Greater Commonwealth housed a gaiafield confluence nest, it was inevitable the lure effect would be at its peak in the plaza.

  No one even looked at them as they walked into the archway with its moiré curtain of luminescence. Aaron’s level-one field scan showed him the three suspects outside had started to move towards the fane. Hopefully they couldn’t detect such a low-power scan, they certainly didn’t appear to be enriched with biononics.

  There were sensors built into the entrance, standard systems recording their faces and signatures, making sure they had no concealed weapons. The kind every public building was equipped with. Aaron’s biononics deflected them easily enough.

  Inside, the siren call within the gaiafield slackened off to be replaced by a single note of harmony. Décor and aether blended to give a sense of peaceful refuge, even the air temperature was pleasantly cool. The reception hall was a replica of the main audience chamber in the Orchard Palace where the Mayor greeted honoured citizens. Here, Clerics talked quietly to small groups of people. Aaron and Corrie-Lyn walked through the hall and into the cloister which let to the eastern entrance. A corridor on the right had no visible barrier. Aaron’s biononic fields manipulated the electronics guarding it, and the force field disengaged. He paused, checking the building network, but there was no alarm.

  ‘In we go,’ he told her quietly.

  A lift took them up to the fourth floor, opening into a windowless corridor narrower than the one downstairs. As they stepped out, his u-shadow informed him that the three waiting taxis had all just had their management programs examined. Aaron was undecided at what point to tell her that they were being targeted again. The longer he left it, the more difficult it would be to extricate them from the fane. He needed her just rattled enough to sign up for his mission, but not too scared she lost all sense.

  With activity in the fane still at a minimum he walked with her along several corridors until they reached Yves’ office. The room had an active screen, but Aaron’s field scan could cut right through it. There was just one person inside, no enrichments showing.

  Corrie-Lyn put a hand lightly on Aaron’s chest. ‘Just me,’ she said. Her voice had dropped to a husky tone. He couldn’t tell if she was being playful or insistent. Either way, there didn’t seem to be a threat in the office, so he smiled gracefully and gestured at the door.

  Once she was inside, he walked down the rest of the corridor, checking the other rooms. A woman in plain brown and blue Cleric robes came out of one after he’d passed. She frowned and said: ‘Can I help—’

  Aaron shot her with a low-power stun pulse from the weapons enrichment in his left forearm. His scrambler field severed her connection with the unisphere as she crumpled on to the floor, blocking the automatic call for help to the police and city medical service emitted by her multicellular clusters. He didn’t even bother scooping her up and shoving her inside an empty room. That simply wasn’t the kind of timescale he was looking at.

  When he started back to Yves’ office, all the lifts began to descend to the ground floor. By expanding his level-one field scan to its limit he could just detect weapons powering up down there. He walked straight into Yves’ office. ‘We have to go—’ he began, then cursed silently.

  Corrie-Lyn was sitting on the edge of a long leather couch, with Yves slumped at the other end. Her red bag was open, an aerosol in her fist, moving hurriedly, guiltily, from her face. A blissful expression weighed down her eyelids and mouth. Aaron couldn’t believe he hadn’t checked her bag while she’d been sleeping. It was completely unprofessional.

  ‘Oh hi,’ she slurred. ‘Yves, this is the guy I was tellin
g you about, my saviour. Aaron, this is Yves, we were just catching up.’

  Yves waved his hand at Aaron, producing a dreamy smile. ‘Cool.’

  ‘Fuck!’ Aaron shot the man with a stun pulse. He was shifting the weapon on Corrie-Lyn when his tactical programs interrupted the action. In her current state it would be a lot easier for him to evacuate her if she was unconscious and inert, however she had to be aware of the danger she was in to make the right choice and confide in him.

  Yves tumbled backwards over the end of the couch and landed on the floor with a soft thud. His legs were propped up by the end of the couch, shoes pointing at the ceiling. Corrie-Lyn stared at her old friend as his feet slowly slithered sideways.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she wailed.

  ‘Putting my arse on the line to save yours. Can you walk?’

  Corrie-Lyn hauled herself along the couch to peer down at the crumpled body. ‘You killed him! Yves! Oh, Ozzie, what are you, you bastard?’

  ‘He’s stunned. Which gives him the perfect alibi. Now can you walk?’

  She turned her head to peer at Aaron, which was clearly an action that required a lot of effort. ‘He’s all right?’

  ‘Oh sod it!’ He didn’t have time to waste being her shrink. ‘Yep, he’s fine. Forget him, we have to get out of here right now.’ He pulled her off the couch and slung her over his shoulder.

  Corrie-Lyn wailed again. ‘Put me down.’

  ‘You can’t even stand up, let alone walk. And we need to run.’ The field medic sac in his thigh opened and ejected a drug pellet. Aaron slapped it against Corrie-Lyn’s neck, above the carotid. ‘That should straighten you out in a minute.’

  ‘No no no,’ she protested. ‘Leave me alone.’

  Aaron ignored her and went out into the corridor. She was hanging over his shoulder, arms beating ineffectually at his buttocks as she cursed him loudly. Several Clerics opened their doors to see what the commotion was. Aaron stunned each one as they appeared.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Corrie-Lyn slurred.

  ‘Getting out of here. Your old friends have found us.’